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Marilee Pott got a shock when she opened her mail one Friday evening in February and saw a two-month electricity bill for $748.50.

The 40-year-old mortgage broker works out of her two-storey suburban Ottawa home, but she’s been working from home for nine years. Sure, it’s been an exceptionally hard winter, but on the other hand her house is heated with natural gas and so is her water. All her major appliances — furnace, air conditioner, washer and dryer — are newer, energy-efficient units less than five years old.

After two months of back and forth with Hydro Ottawa, there’s no resolution. The utility has checked the meter and says it is working properly, so the problem must lie in her house. Pott says nothing changed at her end, though her metered usage pretty much doubled for two months and then fell back.

“(Our) responsibility and jurisdiction ends at the customer’s meter,” says Laura Lauzon, a public affairs supervisor with the utility.

“I just don’t understand it,” replies Pott, who has received a second winter bill that’s also double normal. “There is no explanation that can account for (these bills) besides an error.”

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The one thing everyone agrees on is that Pott’s outstanding balance is $1,399.

Pott contacted me after reading my February column about
the pros and cons of in-home energy monitors.
These devices measure how much energy individual appliances use and the information can be used to turn things off, dial down settings or change the time of day when you use them. In Ontario, they are available free through Peaksaver programs and Pott is enrolled in her local program. It didn’t help her.

She’s learned that when facing a showdown with a monopoly utility, there aren’t many ways to fight back. You can’t go somewhere else for electricity and once the utility is satisfied its systems are working, the case is closed.

Lauzon says Hydro Ottawa get calls every day from customers questioning out-of-the-ordinary bills. She says virtually all of them are related to usage.

“There are very few instances where we determine that there is actually a problem (with our meters),” she says.

Lauzon says the most common culprits in winter are electric baseboard heaters left on 24/7. Pott says she doesn’t have any electric heaters. Lauzan adds that in a winter like this one, “even gas heated homes have felt the pinch as furnace motors and fans have to run.”

When the bill arrived, Pott did what she could. She called Hydro Ottawa and they advised her to shut off her main supply and see if the meter stopped. It did. She also used her Peaksaver monitor to try and find an answer.

“I was obsessed,” she says. “I went around the house, plugging and unplugging things. Nothing registered as a power drain. The hot tub comes on twice a day, but of course it has come on twice a day the entire time we have owned it.”

Pott then enrolled in Hydro Ottawa’s online monitoring program. It lets her look at her power consumption on a daily basis if she chooses. A technician came to her home and concluded the meter readings are correct. He suggested the hot tub may be the culprit, but says Pott: “That was the first thing I checked.”

Hot tubs are notoriously expensive and when hers was installed last year, a big electricity bill arrived soon after. It was determined the tub’s factory setting kept it on 24 hours a day. That was changed to two hours a day, which is the current setting.

The only place left for Pott to go is
Measurement Canada
. This is the federal agency of last resort if you suspect you have received an inaccurate measurement at a gas pump, a grocery store scale or from your utility. You’ll be asked to fill out a form, provide your recent bills and explain what you’ve done to solve the problem. It also takes a long time to wind through the system.

Measurement Canada doesn’t charge a fee and nor does Hydro Ottawa. Your utility might if it removes the meter for testing, puts a temporary one in and later finds the original meter is fine.

Pott isn’t sure what she’s going to do. She has two children under the age of five, a full-time job and very little extra time.

“I don’t feel that I have any way to fight them,” she says. “I can’t go anywhere else. Either you pay or they cut you off.”

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